Please share your opinion.. Thanks! Since search engines treat the www version and the non-www version as different websites, it's recommended that you standardize on one domain to avoid issues such as duplicate content and conflicting rankings. My New domain starts with a letter "w" .. so I'm contemplating on setting my site to be non-www. According to sitepoint .. "fashion has shifted such that many new sites—especially those created for tech-savvy audiences—are now launching without ‘www’ prefixes" What about you guys? are you pro non-www? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages?
I think it makes no difference, for Google you can login the Webmaster Tools to specify whether you want the main to be with www or without www.
Really a useless discussion, they are both equal. This is purely cosmetic, not an search engine optimization value.
Its better to choose one either www or non-www. If you check your indexed pages on Google, you will see difference in the number for them. Making a 301 redirect will make sure only one gets the maximized credit.
In my opinion using non-www would benefit you in some places like when you are building links (non-www version of URL will be 4 characters short), further www is considered to be standard so we can ignore it. I personally prefer to use non-www version.
with www is the best choice. you won't find your back links in Google without www. and might be G will not consider those links as back links.
Sorry for my last post, I was not refreshed, DP King you currently right this was a lame comment. and Vaishali currently you are thinking right. I had seen before a month ago, without www google link command was not working and currently it's. Still it's advisable to have www in URL for the website. DP King: I am not telling about blogs.
i use both www and non-www on my travel site, it doesn't matter in my opinion and also I don't believe that you will get penalize or affect your ranking for using both method.
I think that as you mentioned, it depends on your audience. No www for tech-savvy, www. for 'normal' people. Of course, setting up a re-direct means it doesn't matter for anything apart from marketing maybe.
www is always best - not least for many users who type in just the business name into a browsers address bar and then hits space and enter.
I manage a network of sites on one domain. Even the subdomain admins try to put www infront of their subdomain. Alot depends on your audience. If you are targetting the less tech-savvy then they may be spooked without the www
Good Point. Something I would definitely consider knowing the audience of my upcoming site are the true-blooded-tech-savvy-individuals who are most likely not going to type www anyway.
But sometimes it does Caltex are a big petrochem company... you may have heard of them. Compare these links http://caltex.co.nz/ http://www.caltex.co.nz/ whichever you go for, ensure that your site handles the alternative.
Right cause of the redirect, but if you input the core site's web address, it can be accessed with out without the www
I prefer no www, right now www might be better but now that browsers don't need you to enter the www I feel more people will stop associating it with domain names so i leave it off. Its really just personal preference though I am not trying to start a debate because it really isnt a big deal.